Oswald was a former United States Marine who had served as a air flight controller. During his military career Oswald scored as a "sharpshooter" in December of 1956, but failed to attain his marksmanship badge. There is debate as to the likelihood of Oswald being able to fire shots so accurately and rapidly with the weapon and from the position he was said to use to kill Kennedy.

After his military career, Oswald lived in the USSR1959 - 1962 in Minsk, where he married a Soviet national, Marina (née Nichilayeva) Oswald. (After Oswald's death, Marina remarried and changed her name to Marina Oswald Porter.) He at one time tried to renounce his USA citizenship, but later changed his mind and returned to the USA, bringing Marina and their infant daughter.

In the summer of 1963, Oswald was the secretary of the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee[?]. On August 9, while Oswald distributed "Hands Off Cuba" and "The Crime Against Cuba" leaflets on the streets of New Orleans, he became harassed by anti-Castro Cuban-exiles. Police arrested Oswald for disturbing the peace. The arrest caught the attention of William Stuckey[?], a local reporter who hosted a radio show on WDSU[?] called ""Latin Listening Post." Oswald was a guest on the radio program on August 17 and August 21.

In March 1963, Oswald (using a false name—Alek J. Hidell) purchased a rifle and handgun that was later linked to the events of November 22, 1963.

According to official reports of Kennedy's assasination (disputed by some), Oswald shot Kennedy from a window on the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository (where Oswald was employed) as the President's motorcade passed through Dallas's Dealey Plaza at about 12:30 pm on November 22nd. Texas Governor John Connally[?] was wounded at the same time. After leaving the scene, Oswald allegedly shot and killed Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. Oswald was arrested in a movie theater at about 1:50 pm, first as a suspect in the shooting of Tippit, and was then charged with assasinating Kennedy.

While in custody, Oswald denied the shooting, saying "I didn't shoot anyone" and "I'm just a patsy" to reporters.

Oswald was shot and killed by Texas nightclub owner Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas while being transferred to county jail, two days after the president's assassination, and before being brought to trial. Many alternative theories of the assassination contend that he acted on behalf of others, or even that Oswald was not the actual assassin.

The Warren Commission was created by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963 to investigate the assassination, and it reported its conclusion that Oswald did assassinate Kennedy and, further, that he acted alone. The proceedings of the commission were secret, and its files have yet to be released to the public, further fuelling speculation about the assassination. A later investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations[?], during the late 1970s, established that President Kennedy had been assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In October 1981, Oswald was subject to an exhumation undertaken by British writer Michael Eddowes (with Marina Oswald Porter's support). They sought to prove or disprove a thesis developed in a 1975 book, Khrushchev Killed Kennedy (The book was republished in 1976 in Britain as November 22: How They Killed Kennedy and in America a year later as The Oswald File.) The thesis of the trio of books was that when Oswald went to the Soviet Union, he was swapped with a Soviet clone. Eddowes' proof for his thesis that the corpse buried in 1963 did not have a scar that resulted from surgery conducted on Oswald years before. The final results of the exhumation found that the corpse they studied was Oswald's. The finding was based on dental records.

Psychology of Oswald
Before the age of 18, Oswald had lived in twenty-two different residences and attended twelve different schools. When Oswald was 14 years old, a psychologist diagnosed him as having "personality pattern disturbance".